Page 158 of Under the Iron Sky

“Okay. I tell him let spy go.”

A line slashed between Ikarus’s brows. His head snapped to the creature half sliding back into the brick wall by the door. “What did you just say?”

Golla let out a long sigh. “Traitor downstairs,” he answered slowly, sounding much more annoyed than he had been a moment ago. “Aeris caught him.”

Like water poured onto an open fire, the anger between Soraya and Ikarus went out. She stared at the side of his face, seeing the words slowly register in his head at the same time they did in her own.

Aeris.

Traitor.

Downstairs.

Ma’varea.

Ikarus whirled around, the red stained-glass windows seeming to rattle with him. “Where is he?”

The golem pointed a chubby stone finger to the floor. “West parlor.”

Soraya’s heart sank like a stone dropped into a lake. He couldn’t be here, not when Ikarus was this angry.

Ikarus vanished. Shit.

“Where’s the parlor?”

Golla slid out of the wall. He was in his more reptilian-looking form today. “I show you.”

“I think you’re a bit too heavy for me to carry you.” Not an insult, just … you know, rocks. “Just tell me where.”

Golla blinked at her, then his entire body started to shake. Stones fell away, and when he was done he was barely bigger than a goblet, larger rocks by his feet like shed snakeskin. Oh, that was—handy.

Scooping him up off the floor, Soraya charged down the hallway, where Golla directed her down a spiral staircase that she took two, three at a time, her knees nearly buckling as she landed on the hard stone floor and pushed herself into another run.

Please don’t kill him. She followed Golla’s instructions down hallway after hallway, her breath sawing out of her so quickly her chest ached. Please. Please. Please. Not after today. Not after what’d just happened.

Ikarus hadn’t died. He’d sat there without his helmet on for minutes, much longer than he was supposed to without suffocating—and he hadn’t died. It meant something. Had to. She just needed time to figure out what.

There were spots in her vision when Golla chirped, “These doors.” Lungs burning, she pushed them open.

Ikarus and Aeris were in front of the fire. Aeris trying to restrain a seething Ikarus who was fighting to get to …

That was Malakai sitting restrained in the wooden chair. No. Surely not.

“You traitorous little bastard!” Ikarus was shouting. “Never mind the Ancient One, I’ll kill you myself!” He lunged in Aeris’s grip, seemingly so angry that he’d forgotten he had magic at all in favor of using his fists.

Chuckling, Malakai spat blood onto the floor. Ikarus must’ve gotten at least one good punch in before Aeris got hold of him. “Fuckin’ hell, mate, is that really how you’re going to start this interrogation? At least lube me up a little first. Make me scared. Make me wanna confess.”

Gold eyes flashing with anger, Aeris hissed, “Not the time, Malakai. Or Ma’varea. Or whatever your fucking name is.”

Soraya stared at the three of them, feeling like she was watching a dream unfold.

All that time spent meeting Ma’varea, all these weeks living here under the same roof as Malakai, and she’d never suspected that it might be him. The thought had never even crossed her mind—because why would it?

She’d thought about it no end. Drawn a blueprint in her mind of the type of man Ma’varea might’ve been.

She’d guessed that he might be a Crimson furious at Ramapheal for not promoting him through the ranks and had turned out of anger. Sometimes she’d thought he might be a sympathizer, that maybe he’d been caught up on the wrong side of all this and this was his way of escaping, that in his own mind, each secret he leaked was another brick in his path to redemption.

Malakai … He didn’t fit any of that, though. He didn’t seem to care about titles or recognition, and after everything she’d seen, he was certainly no Vordellian sympathizer.